Archive for August, 2009

1. The film screens once a month at midnight in Los Angeles
2. The film’s star, Tommy Wiseau also wrote, produced and directed the film
3. IMDb reports the budget at $6,000,000.00
4. Was shot on 35mm and High Definition simultaneously
5. The film shot for 8 months in Los Angeles
6. Second unit shooting took place in San Francisco
7. Film employed 400 people
8. Running time 99 minutes
9. Wiseau made a documentary short in 2004 called Homeless in America

The face on the billboard leers down over Highland, half-lidded and haunting in black and white. The image — actually the headshot of helmer Tommy Wiseau — has branded “The Room,” a self-distributed directorial debut so hopelessly amateurish that auds reportedly walked out during its two-week run in July 2003.

You could make an argument for several movies given new life by the witching hour—Donnie Darko, Showgirls, and Troll 2 leap immediately to mind, and Road House seems to be gaining momentum—but Tommy Wiseau’s The Room may be the first true successor to the Rocky Horror throne. Since ending a two-week run at Laemmle’s Sunset 5 theater in Los Angeles in 2003, Wiseau’s self-distributed anti-gem has nurtured a cult following through once-a-month midnight screenings.

Seated in front of a mantle upon which rests a football, a basketball, a bouquet of roses and a poster of his face, a man with a mysterious accent speaks about a movie. “Everything you see and experience was done meticulously with meticulous planning and with a lot of preparation,” he says before adding, “This is the finished product,” in case that was not made clear by the film itself. Click Here to Read More!

If you’ve passed through Hollywood enough times, you can’t have failed to notice the bizarre billboard on the West side of Highland just North of Fountain. And if you’re like me, every time you pass by, you idly wonder about the man whose leonine countenance gazes benignly on weary travellers. What is that guy staring at so intently? Why have I never heard of his movie? And how the hell can he afford to keep that billboard up so freaking long? Click Here to Read the Whole Article!

“At a midnight screening in a Los Angeles multiplex, the atmosphere hovers somewhere between rambunctious and mildly terrifying. Whenever a framed photograph of a spoon appears on screen, which it frequently does, audience members throw fistfuls of plastic cutlery. They also perform skits, at one point gathering at the bottom right of the screen and shouting, ”Down here, Tommy!” anticipating the moment when the face of the lead actor, Tommy Wiseau, looks in their direction. And they comment loudly on blurrily shot scenes (”Focus!”) or inadequately introduced characters (”Who the f— are you?”)”…..